Neil Simon

It makes sense that screenwriter and playwright Neil Simon, who pretty much defined American humor on stage, screen and TV for several decades until his death 2018 at the age of 91, knew how to turn humiliation, heartache, opposites-attract relationships, adultery, marital tensions, likable losers, glib nostalgia and modern insecurities into red, white and blue hilarity. What else would you expect from a Jewish boy from the Bronx who was born on the Fourth of July in 1927, right before the Great Depression? 

With parents whose marriage he would kindly describe as being “tempestuous,” Doc, as he was called, sought out books by such humorists as Mark Twain, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman and S.J. Perelman in order to bury his own troubles while picking up hints on how to use words to incite laughter. His work often paired humor with an undercurrent of pathos, intertwining chuckles with tears. In the ‘50s, he would brush up his comedy chops by writing alongside the likes of Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen for TV’s “Your Show of Shows” starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, for which he won two Emmys,  and for the Army sitcom “The Phil Silvers Show.” Broadway plays came next – earning him 17 Tony nominations and three wins. He would go on to adapt many of his stage hits into movie scripts and received four Academy Award nominations for writing.

Simon was a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1995 and a recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2006. Not that he was impressed with such awards. As he told “The New York Times” in 1984 after being handed an honorary degree from Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.: “People with honorary awards are looked upon with disfavor. Would you let an honorary mechanic fix your brand-new Mercedes?”

Given that he was married five times, including twice to actress Diane Lander, Simon was obviously an optimist when it came to matters of the heart. Tour our photo gallery above of his 15 greatest films, ranked worst to best, including “The Goodbye Girl,” “The Odd Couple,” “The Sunshine Boys” and “The Out-of-Towners.”

15. “SWEET CHARITY” (1969)

Director: Bob Fosse. Screenplay: Peter Stone (based on Simon’s play). Starring: Shirley MacLaine, John McMartin, Ricardo Montalban, Chita Rivera, Paula Kelly, Stubby Kaye, Sammy Davis Jr.

Anyone who has watched the recent FX limited series “Fosse/Verdon” knows, Fosse’s film-directing debut — which he also oversaw and choreographed on Broadway — was a notorious box-office flop in the height of the hippie era.  His wife, Gwen Verdon, who received no credit for assisting with the choreography, encouraged MacLaine to take the part of taxi-dancer Charity Hope Valentine that she had played on the Great White Way. Verdon even coached her through the role. Based in part on Federico Fellini’s 1957 Italian film “Nights of Cabiria,” the plot revolves around unlucky-in-love Charity trying to find the right man to take her away from her sleazy profession. She meets shy Oscar Lindquist (McMartin) when they get stuck in an elevator and they click – but she doesn’t tell him what she does for a living. The plot is slight but the musical numbers such as  “Big Spender,” “Rich Man’s Frug” and “If My Friends Could See Me Now” just ooze Fosse’s trademark razzle dazzle. The movie earned three Academy Award nominations: art and set decoration, costume design and score of a musical picture.

14. “THE CHEAP DETECTIVE” (1978)

Director: Robert Moore. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Peter Falk, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Eileen Brennan, Ann-Margret, Sid Caesar, Stockard Channing, Louise Fletcher.

Genre spoof comedies were a hot commodity in the ‘70s and ‘80s, from Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” and Young Frankenstein” to “Airplane!,” courtesy of the Zucker brothers – and Simon joined right in. This is a somewhat more slapdash follow-up to his “Murder by Death,” with Falk taking charge as San Francisco detective Lou Pekinpaugh. The plot parodies several Humphrey Bogart classics including “The Maltese Falcon,” “The Big Sleep” and “Casablanca” along with echoes of the actor’s own bumbling TV detective, Columbo. The McGuffin is a set of diamond eggs that a dozen or so characters are chasing down. Fletcher stands in for Ingrid Bergman’s Isla while Kahn impersonates Mary Astor’s shady Brigid O’Shaughnessy with no less than 16 aliases. But for me, the MVP is Eileen Brennan as a nightclub chanteuse named Betty DeBoop who “la-la-la’s” her way through a rendition of “La Vie en Rose” and shares a hilarious duet with Falk as they croon, “Deep Purple.”

13. “MURDER BY DEATH” (1976)

Director: Robert Moore. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Peter Falk, Eileen Brennan, James Coco, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Truman Capote.

Simon’s script for this whodunit satire skewered a quintet of literary super sleuths with a cast of A-list talent:  Charlie Chan (Sellers), Nick and Nora Charles (Niven, Smith), Hercule Poirot (Coco, whose big line is, “I’m not a ‘Frenchie,’ I’m a ‘Belgie!’ ”), Sam Spade (Falk) with his sexy secretary (Brennan) and Miss Marple (Lanchester). They are called into action by a wealthy recluse, Lionel Twain, (author Capote in a rare acting role) who offers a million dollar reward if they solve a murder that will occur at midnight. Want a sample of Simon’s spoofy repartee? Falk’s Sam Diamond: “I don’t get it. First they steal the body and leave the clothes, and then they take the clothes and bring the body back. Who would do a thing like that?” Niven as Dick Charleston: “Possibly some deranged dry cleaner.”  Guinness steals the show and basically kills it as a blind butler.

12. “BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS” (1986)

Director: Gene Saks. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Jonathan Silverman, Blythe Danner, Bob Dishy, Judith Ivey. Brian Drillinger.

The first chapter of Simon’s semi-autobiographical “Eugene” trilogy that includes “Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound” is a coming-of-age story set in Depression-era 1937 about a self-deprecating, girl-crazy Polish-Jewish adolescent Eugene Morris Jerome, (Silverman) who often speaks directly to the camera. Critics preferred the stage version more than this film adaptation. The basic premise concerns the difficulty of going through puberty while living in an extended family that is struggling to pay the bills. That includes Eugene’s mother and father  (a nagging, guilt-inducing Danner and a meek Dishy, who eventually becomes ill), his older brother (Drillenger), a widowed aunt (Ivey) and two female cousins. Roger Ebert in his review faulted Saks’ direction: “Everything is by the numbers. After we learn that the hero’s family always pronounces diseases with a whisper, we know with total certainty that at least one whispered disease will be “diarrhea.”

11. “BILOXI BLUES” (1988)

Director: Mike Nichols. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Matthew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Michael Dolan, Corey Parker, Casey Siemaszko, Penelope Ann Miller, Park Overall.

An endearing account of a now-20-year-old Eugene (Broderick) as he dishes on his loss of virginity and boot-camp rigors in 1943.  The wanna-be Bronx-born playwright who finds himself in Dixie with a motley crew of recruits and butts heads with Walken as a half-nutty drill sergeant with a plate in his head. He finds solace in his pal Epstein, a Jewish intellectual who inspires him to avoid mediocrity, and also with Overall as a husky-voiced prostitute who shows him the ropes of sexual congress. Broderick repeats the role he played on stage as an awkward kid who learns to be comfortable with himself and his aspirations. As he says about his World War II experience, “It was one of your better wars. We liked the songs. We liked the uniforms. We liked that everybody liked us.”

10. “THE PRISONER OF SECOND AVENUE” (1975)

Director: Melvin Frank. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Anne Bancroft, Gene Saks, Elizabeth Wilson.

Urban angst is making life miserable for a middle-aged married couple who live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Ad man Mel Edison (Lemmon) loses his job and must cope with unemployment during a recession. His ego also suffers a blow when he must subsist on the paycheck of his wife (Bancroft).  On top of that, the pair is being driven half-crazy from a scorching summer heat wave, a garbage strike, loud neighbors and a daylight burglary of their apartment. This is Simon in a less cuddly mood – despite committed performances by Lemmon, whose sanity is crumbling by the minute, and Bancroft, who is desperate to keep her spouse from suffering a nervous breakdown.

9. “SEEMS LIKE OLD TIMES” (1980)

Director: Jay Sandrich. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Goldie Hawn, Chevy Chase, Charles Grodin, Robert Guillaume.

Simon is in screwball comedy mode with this big-screen second pairing of Chase and Hawn after 1978’s “Foul Play.” He’s Nick, a struggling writer, who is staying in a friend’s Big Sur cabin. He is forced by crooks to rob a bank at gunpoint, give them the cash and toss their victim out of the car. Unfortunately, he trips while in the bank and his image is caught on a security camera. The photo is seen by Los Angeles district attorney Ira (Grodin), who is married to Nick’s ex-wife Glenda (Hawn), also a lawyer.  He fears it might harm his political ambitions. Glenda decides to defend Nick and hides him in the guest room. Comical high jinks ensue as the breezy chemistry between the two stars sells the frantic farce.

8. “LOST IN YONKERS” (1993)

Director: Martha Coolidge. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Mercedes Ruehl, Irene Worth, David Strathairn, Brad Stool, Mike Damus.

Based on Simon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, “Yonkers” is a World War II-era tale of an eccentric family that is ruled by an iron-fisted grandma (Worth). After their mother dies and their father goes off to find a job in the South, teen brothers Jay (Stoll) and Arty (Damus) go to live with this cold and strict older woman along with their Uncle Louie (Dreyfuss), who works for mobsters, and exuberant Aunt Bella (Ruehl), who suffers from mood swings but finds joy in watching movies. She even is dating a shy usher (Strathairn) from the local movie palace. Coolidge manages to keep these Simon-ized characters more grounded  than usual while Ruehl’s performance of a young woman unduly influenced by her controlling mother yet still manages to abide on her own terms collected the lion’s share of critical praise.

7. “THE SUNSHINE BOYS” (1975)

Director: Herbert Ross. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin, Lee Meredith.

Matthau and Burns are Willy Clark and Al Lewis, a crusty pair of comics who used to be a vaudeville team. But after 43 years of being together, they broke up more than a decade ago on not the friendliest of terms after Al wanted to retire and Willy wasn’t ready to quit. As Willy says about his former partner, “As an act, nobody could touch him. As a human being, no one WANTED to touch him!” Willy’s nephew, Ben (Benjamin), is struggling to find his uncle some gigs. A TV network is airing a program on the history of comedy and they want a reunited Lewis and Clark to re-create their famous “Doctor Sketch.” The cranky twosome can’t seem to find common ground but eventually mend their fences. At 79, Burns would have a career revival in his golden years after winning a supporting Oscar for his cantankerous comic, while Matthau was nominated as a lead and Simon competed for his adapted screenplay. The movie also was up for its art direction.

6. “BAREFOOT IN THE PARK” (1967)

Director: Gene Saks. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Mildred Natwick, Charles Boyer.

Redford is tightly-wound attorney Paul and Fonda is free-spirited Corie, newlyweds who move into a tiny walk-up apartment on the fifth floor of a Greenwich Village brownstone. Their love nest lacks heat, has a hole in the skylight and sundry kooky neighbors milling about. Boyer is a flirty resident who must go through their apartment window to get to his place in the attic. He teaches Corie some handyman tricks and she sets him up with her mother, Ethel (Natwick), as both couples go on a double date. Victor and Corie live it up, drinking and cavorting with a belly dancer at an Albanian restaurant while Paul and Ethel are not amused. They have a spat over the fact that Paul refused to run unshod through park when it was freezing. To prove Corie wrong, he gets drunk and indeed runs sans shoes through the park before climbing onto the roof of their brownstone. A crowd gathers and applauds when the couple kisses and makes up. Redford and Fonda would rekindle their youthful chemistry in such films as 1979’s “The Electric Horseman” and 2017’s “Our Souls at Night.” Natwick, who was nominated for a supporting actress, spins gold from her character’s exhaustion from all the stairs leading to her daughter’s apartment. Or, as she says, “I feel like we’ve died and gone to heaven – only we had to climb.”

5. “CALIFORNIA SUITE” (1978)

Director: Herbert Ross. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Alan Alda, Michael Caine, Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda, Walter Matthau, Elaine May, Richard Pryor, Maggie Smith.

A sunnier alternative to  1971’s Manhattan-based “Plaza Suite,” which Simon himself admitted he didn’t really like.  It similarly unfolds in a luxury hotel and delves into the dilemmas of an array of guests, who are played by a much more glittering array of actors. Fonda and Alda are a combative divorced couple who argue over what is best for their teen daughter. Matthau must dispose of a passed-out prostitute in his room – a gift from his brother – before his wife May arrives. Pryor and Cosby are rival doctors on vacation with their wives who are forced to share a room and settle their differences on a tennis court. But leave it to the Brits to deliver the sophisticated comic goods as Smith’s Oscar-nominated actress, who is in town for the ceremony, can no longer overlook the fact that hubby Caine is actually gay. Dame Maggie gets the best zingers, such as, “I need another drink. The last one wore off in the lift.” Also: “Why do they have these things so early,” she gripes about the Academy Awards. “I mean, no woman can look good at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Except, possibly , Tatum O’Neal.” In an example of life sort of imitating life, Smith won a supporting Oscar for her efforts. The film was also nominated for Simon’s adapted screenplay as well for art direction and set design.

4. “THE ODD COUPLE” (1968)

Director: Gene Saks. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, Monica Evans, Carole Shelley.

The second best thing about this adaptation of Simon’s stage play about the foibles of male friendship and the state of American manhood when women aren’t around to clean up their messes is how evergreen its sturdy premise has proven to be over the years. It has re-materialized as a ‘70s TV sitcom, a cartoon, an ‘80s TV series with an African-American cast, a play version with female leads and a revival as a sitcom in 2015. The tippy-top best thing about this movie version about is the casting of Walter Matthau as a slobby, divorced sportswriter Oscar Madison and Jack Lemmon as fuss-budget hypochondriac news writer Felix Ungar, who moves in with his pal after his wife kicks him out. It doesn’t take long before Felix’s compulsive cleaning and the obnoxious noises he makes while clearing his sinuses drive Oscar nuts. The final straw is when Felix ruins a double date with the flirty British Pigeon Sisters (delightfully chipper Evans and Shelley) by causing them to cry by telling them about his woes. How durable is this material? Matthau and Lemmon reprise their roles in a sequel 30 years later.  Simon’s script was Oscar-nominated – and rightly so.

3. “THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS” (1970)

Director: Arthur Hiller. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sandy Dennis, Sandy Baron, Anne Meara, Ann Prentiss.

Whenever I travel by plane, I think of this movie and then make sure I eat something if it is a long flight. I don’t want to end up like Lemmon’s character does when he is reduced to eating stale Cracker Jack left by a dog in a Manhattan park and chipping his tooth. That is the least of the indignities suffered by Ohio couple Gwen (Dennis) and George Kellerman, who fly to New York City for a job interview. Yes, I always laugh whenever Dennis whines. “Oh my God!” every time something goes wrong, from having their flight rerouted to Boston while their luggage is left behind. That is just the start. Mass transit, taxi drivers and sanitation workers on strike. The Waldorf-Astoria has given away their reservation. They are mugged and kidnapped – and on and on. And yet they soldier ahead as an angry George writes down the names of everyone who has made their lives a living hell. To me, Dennis is one of the more unique actresses that Hollywood has ever produced, and she and Lemmon against the world is something to see. I might be out on a limb in my appreciation of this film, but then I have flown to New York — a lot.

2. “THE HEARTBREAK KID” (1972)

Director: Elaine May. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Charles Grodin, Jeannie Berlin, Eddie Albert, Doris Roberts, Cybill Shepherd.

Grodin is Lenny, a sporting goods salesman, who weds Berlin’s Lila, a naive and needy young woman in a Jewish ceremony. When they go on their honeymoon in Miami Beach, Lenny decides to woo the gorgeous college girl Kelly (Shepherd), who is vacationing with her rich parents. He lies to Lila, who is severely sunburned to spend time with this Waspy goddess. He impulsively leaves his bride behind to pursue Kelly to Minnesota. Standing in his way is her protective father (Albert) who has nothing but disdain for Lenny and tries to bribe him to go away. Instead, Kelly agrees to marry Lenny just to tick off her father. The shallow lover boy is left out of his own wedding and doesn’t know where he belongs. May’s direction anchors Simon’s script with a splash of comedic sophistication with fully fleshed-out characterizations. Berlin, May’s daughter, and Albert were both Oscar-nominated for their supporting roles. Albert gets the best line when he yells at Grodin: “You don’t know what determination is. I eat determination for breakfast!”

1. “THE GOODBYE GIRL” (1977)

Director: Herbert Ross. Writer: Neil Simon. Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings, Paul Benedict.

Dancer Paula McFadden (Mason, who was wed to Simon at the time) and her precocious 10-year-old daughter, Lucy (Cummings), share a Manhattan apartment with mom’s actor boyfriend. He ups and leaves to make a film in Italy, but not before he secretly subleases the place to Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss), an actor from Chicago. Despite their initial dislike of one another, they decide to share the place. At first, Elliot is demanding, throwing a fit when Paula tries to boss him around. He says, “I am paying the rent, I will make-a-da rules. I like to take showers every morning and I don’t like the panties drying on the rod.” For emphasis, he plucks the damp undies right off. You can tell from their rapid-fire repartee these two are meant for each other. Oscar voters most likely couldn’t wait to write Dreyfuss’ name down as their Best Actor choice just for Elliot’s humiliating yet poignant experience in an off-off Broadway production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III.”  Seems his director (Benedict) doesn’t want him to don the usual hump. Instead, he suggests swishing about the stage, lisping  his lines and act “gay.”  Or, as he puts it, Richard is “the queen who wanted to be king.” Besides Dreyfuss’ win, the film was nominated for Best Picture, lead actress for Mason, supporting actress for Cummings and for Simon’s original script.